In Which Feuilly and Grantaire Almost Drown
by Unicadia
Summary: Feuilly goes to retrieve his bag from Grantaire - and gets a lot more than what he bargained for.


**Many thanks to Igenlode Wordsmith for beta-ing!**

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In the rather extraordinary revolutionary group, the Friends of the ABC, there was one member who was quite ordinary. Sacha Feuilly was not high-strung or wild, did not possess a slightly glowing halo of hair, and did not have any disorders or vices. While being quite a decent-looking man, he did not have the kind of face girls swooned over, could not draw moths from memory, was not especially lucky or unlucky, and certainly did not obsess over a girl whose name he didn't even know. True, he did enjoy and study flowers, but only so he could paint them on the fans he made and sold. But he couldn't write poetry to save his life. Perhaps the strangest thing about him was his fanaticism about Poland, but in this particular revolutionary group, that wasn't very extraordinary.

Another oddity might have been that he was the only working class member of the Friends of the ABC, but that's just plain boring, so let's move on.

After such a meeting of these revolutionaries at the Café Musain, in the midst of everyone getting ready to leave, Feuilly packed up his satchel, but set it aside at his table while he went to exchange a few words with Enjolras, their leader. After bidding farewell to his comrades, he retrieved the bag and set off on the long walk to his rooms. He ascended the stairs and stopped in front of his door to take out the keys, opened his satchel and froze.

This wasn't his bag. A half-empty bottle, a notebook, and bits of paper and other rubbish occupied it, along with some keys - obviously Grantaire's. While Grantaire was always the last one to leave the Musain, he would most likely be heading home by now - and probably with Feuilly's things. A little irritated, Feuilly shouldered the satchel and made his way back down the stairs and to the street, where he left for Grantaire's apartment.

No street lamps lighted this dark corner of the city. Feuilly cautiously crept down the alley leading to the dank apartment building. A faint light flickered up ahead and Feuilly could make out the shadowy figures of several men. Was it just his imagination, or was that curly-haired Grantaire with his face pressed against the wall and his arms twisted behind him by a gorilla of a man?

"Hello, boy," rasped a voice behind him. Before he could respond, rough hands grabbed his shoulders and shoved him toward the group. "Look what I found."

His captor thrust Feuilly into the midst of the men. Feuilly lunged away from the rogues, but two of them easily caught him, ripped the satchel from his shoulder, tied his wrists together, and threw him next to Grantaire, whose wrists were now also tied.

"Hey, Feuilly," Grantaire whispered. "I had your bag, but they got it."

"Sacha? Is that you?" exclaimed a new voice.

Feuilly jumped and turned toward the speaker. "Oh. Hi, Montparnasse."

Grantaire's jaw unhinged. "Wait – you know this guy?"

Feuilly blushed. "I know almost all of them. Back in the day – well, I was part of the Patron-Minette."

"Oh, right, of course you were. And Enjolras has black hair."

"ANYWAY, that was a long time ago."

"Hushy," snapped a man, smacking Feuilly's cheek. The thugs searched Feuilly and emptied the contents of the satchel. Neither satisfied them, and they threw down the bag in disgust.

"Waste of time, Thénardier," one of them snorted to a skinny runt of a man.

"Now you hushy," the other shot back. There was a moment of silence. Then the skinny man, Thénardier, sprang up, and rubbing his hands together, he cried, "I know! They're all revolutionaries, I know; my girl, Éponine, told me. The crown would pay a hefty sum for them, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah, it would also pay a hefty sum for us, too," growled a man.

"Shut it! We'll send someone else to tell 'em. And you," Thénardier jabbed a finger at Feuilly and Grantaire, "you're gonna spill us the names of your little friends!"

 _Oh no, this is it,_ Feuilly thought as the Patron-Minette dragged him and Grantaire to a lonely bridge spanning the Seine. "Come on, 'Parnasse," he pleaded. "Can't you let us go? For old times' sake?"

Montparnasse looked unhappy, but he said nothing. They tied Feuilly and Grantaire upside-down by their ankles over the rushing water. "All right, now," said Thénardier, rubbing his hands again. "Talk."

Feuilly felt dizzy. His head was on fire, and a huge pressure crushed in on his skull from all sides. His legs ached and the river loomed up at him, laughing at him. He opened his mouth to say, "Enjolras – I don't know his first name, sorry, but his hair glows in the dark"- but Grantaire spoke first.

"Laurent Giffard, Désiré Latude, Basile Guilliard, Léandre Godet, Rémi d'Andre, Pascal Chénier, Celestin François, and Flavien Brunet." Thénardier scribbled on a piece of paper as Grantaire rattled the names off.

Feuilly kept his lips tight. None of those names belonged to anyone he knew. He wondered how Grantaire had thought them all up so quickly. Unless they weren't made up . . .

"Ha, ha!" Thénardier crowed. "They won't know what hit them. Haul 'em up, boys; we're taking them in."

Feuilly's pounding mind raced. The ropes jolted, and he watched the river swing farther away from him. Glancing at Grantaire, he hissed, "Try wriggling out of your boots."

"But we'll-"

"Sh! Just do it."

"Eh? What's that?" one of the men shouted at them.

Feuilly twisted around in his boots, gritting his teeth as his right ankle squeezed through the tight rope loop. His foot jerked out and almost smacked Grantaire in the face. "What the –?!" Thénardier yelled. "Get them up, you idiots!"

Feuilly was almost over the balustrade of the bridge now, but his left foot remained caught in its boot. He pushed his right foot against the boot, but it kept sliding away from it. With a tremendous effort, he swung his left foot up and scraped it against the top of the balustrade. The boot snagged and the instant it popped off, he wondered: _Was this a good idea?_ "Hey!" he heard Thénardier cry distantly as he plummeted down, his breath rushing out of him, the world spinning away from him in a horrifying plunge.

Something soft and stinking beyond words smashed into Feuilly. A second later, something heavy hit close to where he lay, making whatever he'd landed on shift a little beneath him. Screamed curses came faintly to his ears, and he stiffly raised himself to his elbows and looked up. There was the bridge floating away with the Patron-Minette on it. Looking around, he realized he had fallen onto a rubbish barge which must have been passing under the bridge right when he freed himself. Grantaire lay beside him on his back with a dazed expression on his face.

"I thought . . ." whispered Grantaire in a pained voice, ". . . that Heaven would be less smelly."

"We're not dead, R. Get up!" Feuilly shook Grantaire's shoulder, and Grantaire got into a sitting position. He laughed upon seeing the frantic Patron-Minette on the bridge. "I wish I could see their faces!"

When the boat towing the barge docked some miles down, Feuilly and Grantaire disembarked and wandered along the dim Paris streets away from the river, trailing garbage. "About those names," Feuilly ventured. "Are they . . .?"

"Long-dead ancestors of mine."

"But what if they happen to belong to real people here in Paris? They'll be in trouble."

"Oh, I doubt they're real. Too bad for them if they are. Once you guys are done reforming the government, maybe you can make it up to them or something . . . if they're not executed first."

"All right. Well." Feuilly ran his hand through his auburn hair without thinking, still a little shaken. "At least you thought of something."

Grantaire gave Feuilly a sidelong look. "You think the Patron-Minette will be after you?"

"Why would they be after me?"

"Well, seeing how neither of us can get back home because they stole our keys, I was thinking that we can go over to Enjolras' for the night."

Feuilly blinked. "What does that have to do with the Patron-Minette?"

"I'm just being cautious. Wouldn't want our fearless leader kidnapped before he killed the king, now would we?"

"Uh . . ." Feuilly touched his dripping coat. "But we're . . ."

"But if you think we're safe, let's go then." Grantaire took Feuilly's slimy hand and dragged him away.

 _Fin_


End file.
